1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention relate to a data management apparatus and method and, more particularly, to a data management apparatus and method capable of safely and efficiently managing data and reducing data loss due to system problems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Multimedia products generally include a storage device having content stored therein. The storage device needs to have a way of recording content onto the storage device. The recording may fail due to a problem supplying power, an external impact, or a disk error occurring during the recording process. Therefore, DTVs (Digital Television), IPTVs (Internet Protocol Television), PVRs (Personal Video Recorder), or other multimedia products having a mass storage disk should safely store data to be recorded on the disk even when the power is suddenly cut.
FIG. 1 shows a file system according to the related art. General file systems store data management information in data blocks in order to manage stored data. The information stored in the data blocks is stored in a reservation block included in the disk so as to be stored and managed in the same position of the disk. As shown in FIG. 1, a boot sector block 10 is prepared for a bootable storage device. When power is supplied to a computer, programs to be executed to initialize a system and to load an operating system into memory are stored in the boot sector block 10.
A partition table block 20 is prepared to store information necessary to divide the mass storage disk into the size determined by the user or to divide one disk into a plurality of partitions for management. A file system information block 30 is allocated to hold file system management information and stored in a predetermined position of the disk.
A block managing information block 40 is prepared to store information on a data block 50 to be managed by the file system. The block managing information block 40 is used to manage the data blocks 50 existing on the disk. Information on the data blocks 50 is stored and managed in a predetermined storage space designated according to the file system. The data blocks 50 are storage space for storing data.
The file system may update information stored in the block managing information block 40 and then record data with respect to the data block 50 on the disk. The file system may also record data on the disk and then update information stored in the block managing information block 40.
The information on the block managing information block 40 to be recorded is stored in a predetermined/designated position of the disk. The position is determined when initializing the disk by the corresponding file system and is stored on the disk whenever information on a memory is updated. The information on the data block 50 that copies and stores the same data is stored in a designated predetermined storage space (block) and used to restore data when disk access failure occurs due to a power supply problem or other problems.
The file system accesses the disk by performing read/write operations, searches a file system loaded in a predetermined position of the memory and information stored in the block managing information block 40, and operates on data. The file system updates information stored in the disk when the block managing information stored in the memory and file system managing information are updated and predetermined conditions are satisfied according to an algorithm implemented in the file system.
However, according to the related art, since the information necessary for managing the stored data is stored only in designated blocks on the disk, the designated blocks are frequently accessed to perform the read/write operation. If the corresponding blocks are damaged due to problems of the disk, for example, failure of supplying power, the information recorded in the entire disk is in danger of being lost.
Since the disk storing the copy of the corresponding information is accessed to hold the copy as the same as the original information, the data may be lost when failing to access the disk due to the problem of power supply failures.